


Nyums Brand Makeshift Cocoa

by HotGoatCheese



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Incest, Romantic Fluff, Time Travel, don't make chocolate milk like Mabel I don't actually know if that process works, unknowing incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 08:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19269349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotGoatCheese/pseuds/HotGoatCheese
Summary: In the wee hours of the morning, in a Shack that is not yet Mystery and a Ford that is not yet Grunkle - Mabel wakes up from a passionate night to find that making chocolate milk when things aren't quite what she knows them to be yet is a little more difficult than it sounds.





	Nyums Brand Makeshift Cocoa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InternetCannibal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InternetCannibal/gifts).



The feeling of seeing a picture of someone you know from before you knew them has nothing on meeting someone before you knew them. It'd been confusing, initially. Looking into this man's eyes and realizing that he wasn't her Grunkle Ford. Not yet. Worse yet was realizing that, with luck, he never would be. Oh, he'd be some Mabel's Grunkle. Just not hers. 

That was okay, he was way too hot these days to be her Grunkle. She'd noticed that right away, but hadn't dreamed she'd ever indulge the thought. So, less than a month later, waking up in his bed with all her clothes strewn over the floor was unexpected. Certainly not disappointing though. Except for the fact that it was still dark outside, probably the wee hours of the morning. Ford was sleeping, a rare enough sight that Mabel allowed herself a moment to just look at him. To just enjoy his presence. 

Then she slipped out of bed and grabbed her sweater from yesterday. She pulled it back on and tugged it down so it stretched passed her hips and started out of the bedroom. 

The other thing she hadn't been prepared of was meeting a _place_ she knew before she'd known it. Ford's house wasn't the Mystery Shack. Or rather, it was, but not yet. She knew its layout by heart, but not what went where. She didn't know it's soul. Not yet. For some reason that hit her now as she started down the familiar steps, a little pang of grief for the home that would never quite be. Maybe it was the way the third step from the bottom failed to creak when she stepped toward the center, as it always had in her teen years.   
Maybe it was the scrubbed clean counter tops in the kitchen, strewn with canned and packaged foods. Ford lacked his brother's organizational skills, but had no tolerance for the sticky messes that had been commonplace in Stan's kitchen. The kitchen built just like this - but the chocolate milk powder was not where Mabel's instincts said it would be. That cupboard was empty. 

Turned out, the chocolate milk powder wasn't _anywhere_. Ford didn't have it. Mabel searched the entire kitchen and the only chocolate she found at all was a cheap candy bar in the refrigerator. It would have to do then. She took the bar and the milk from the refrigerator and got out a small saucepan. A little water in the bottom of the pan wouldn't kill it, it would help melt the chocolate without turning the milk. She set the water on the stove and began breaking the bar into it, then waited, poking at the pieces with a wooden spoon.   
The pieces melted into a thick sauce over a couple minutes and Mabel added a generous serving of milk to the saucepan. Possibly too much for a single mug. She scowled a little when she stopped pouring. This would likely be some hopelessly weak chocolate milk. She'd have to do something to make it better, and Ford didn't have much in the way of beverage improvements. 

She'd just done enough stirring to feel comfortable turning around and seeking out the sugar - about the only thing this kitchen had that might be of any help - when she startled to find Ford standing in the doorway. He was wearing his boxers again, and his glasses, which he certainly hadn't been when she'd gotten out of bed, but nothing else. Her heart rate kicked up and she swallowed hard. "Hi." she greeted simply. 

"Are you cooking?" he asked, somewhere between confused and incredulous. 

"Chocolate Milk." Mabel explained. "It's my go-to when I can't sleep. I might have made too much so you can have some too." 

Ford blinked at her and Mabel felt herself grinning back at him. Where did he get off being hot and adorable at the same time? It genuinely wasn't fair. "How are you making chocolate milk?" 

"You had a chocolate nyums bar in the fridge." Mabel explained. "I melted it." then she paused as a realization struck her. "I'll...get you a new one if you were saving it..." 

Ford smiled. "Hardly. Honestly I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the thing. It was a holiday gift from boyish Dan." 

"Holiday!?" Mabel echoed, startled. "It's...been in there -" 

"Four months." Ford confirmed, and Mabel stared at him in horror. "I don't believe it would have expired in that time, especially with refrigeration - we can check the label for a sell-by date if you've kept it -" 

"You had a chocolate bar in your fridge for _**Four Months**_ and you never ate it?" Mabel wasn't shouting, but her voice had definitely arced towards its higher end. "What _are_ you?" Ford blinked again and Mabel shook her head and wagged a finger at him. "Oh no you don't, Mister. You don't get to be all cute with me right now. You explain yourself. What do you have against chocolate?" 

"Chocolate? Nothing." Ford answered. "Cheap milk chocolate? Quite a bit. Too sweet, for starters; and lacking any of the health benefits of its darker varieties." 

Mabel gaped at him, hand dropping back to her side. "It's like I don't even know you. Too sweet. What does that even mean?" 

Ford glanced away a bit sheepishly. "If it helps-" he hesitated, then gestured "You may want to check the bottom shelf of the pantry. I think you'll like what you find there." He paused as she started that direction, eyeing him warily. "Not the floor, of course. That's for dry storage, but the lowest actual shelf." 

Mabel opened the pantry door and bent a little to see the shelf mentioned in its entirety. She didn't find too much of interest. Just a lot of bags closed with clips and boxes re-sealed with makeshift tabs cut into them. Still, she trusted Ford, so she poked around a little on that shelf until she found it. At a glance, it was just another clipped-closed half-full plastic bag. Until she saw the contents. Then she gasped and pulled it out excitedly, holding the bag aloft and exclaiming "Marshmallows!" 

Ford laughed. A low, rumbling sort of laugh that Mabel could feel all the way down to her toes from across the room. "Yes, Marshmallo-" he was cut off suddenly by Mabel's slight frame impacting his, arms, and marshmallow bag, thrown around his neck as she pulled herself up the inches of distance in their heights and kissed him hard. He took a moment, startled by her sudden action. Then slowly his arms wrapped around her waist and he returned the kiss. One hand rested just past her waist toward her spine, the other curling up to rest just below her shoulder blades. 

She broke the kiss and grinned at him, and he smiled back. Delighted, and - maybe not quite unreserved, but certainly less so than she'd seen this Ford, even last night. Then Mabel practically bounced away to finish preparing two mugs of chocolate milk.   
The chocolate was fairly weak in the end. Mabel made up for it by a virtual mountain of marshmallows poking out of the top of the glass. Ford opted for only one or two and Mabel stuck her tongue out at him, earning a perfectly adorable eyeroll in return. 

He wasn't her grunkle, and he never would be. She'd make sure of that. But he'd be something better. Some other Mabel would be so lucky to have him - but for now, so was she.


End file.
